Contentions

Barack Obama says there won’t be time for a bunch of “crazy things” while he’s busy re-jiggering the tax code, pushing through his healthcare plan and dealing with energy in a “serious way.” If we had an independent media, someone might ask what the list of “crazy things” includes. Does abolishing union secret ballot elections make the list? Does renegotiating NAFTA? Is cutting defense spending crazy?

The Republicans didn’t pull the liberal wish list out of thin air. They have simply been reminding voters of the items which Obama and his Democratic allies have talked about. It seems only fair for Obama, with some specificity, to tell us what’s off that wish list. After all, if he really is a moderate and intends to fight Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid tooth and nail, he should be telling voters that to put their minds at ease. But, in this case, I suspect the silence is quite strategic. Just as he can never tell us what items he’ll cut in the budget, he’s not about to tell us which items on the wish list he’s serious about.

I’ll take Hillary Clinton’s admonition at face value: “With Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.”